


Long Distances, Crossed Quickly

by Anonymous



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Judgment, Loss of Identity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 21:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A reinterpretation of their confrontation on board the Vengeful Spirit.





	Long Distances, Crossed Quickly

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the events of _Ruinstorm_.

It was not a lie to say that Horus had observed the Angel's fight at the Gate of Terra. It would be closer to the truth, however, to say he could not look elsewhere throughout the week-long ordeal. His mouth went dry and his heart sped up and it was like the two of them were meeting again as strangers, for how badly his whole being ached with want.

This is my best beloved brother, he acknowledged. He, and no one else, might rule by my side.

It was an impossible dream, he knew this as soon as he conceived of it. But it did not stop him from dreaming, from running through possibility after possibility. Just as Sanguinius looked for a chance to kill him in their hundred-fold fateful encounters, so too had Horus sought some chance to turn the other. The skirmish with the Red Angel had been the closest he had come, but even then, Sanguinius remained untouchable.

If he were to be honest with himself — an increasingly rare sentiment; in fact he was more honest in his brief conversation with the Angel than when speaking with his own conscience — he would have been disappointed with any other outcome. He and Sanguinius existed, best, when they were opposite sides of the same coin. For that reason, their initial acquaintanceship had been a fascinating experience, when Horus wanted to best and be bested by him in equal measure.

Yes, it was a uniquely thrilling experience, to be on the opposing side. He had imagined it many times: greeting the Emperor's own Herald before his own court. He would be seen as nothing short of an Emperor in his own right, accepting the goodwill of a visiting diplomat. There might not even be words exchanged before Sanguinius crossed the distance between them, sword unsheathed and wings flared, ready to bleed and kill, save for his unperturbed expression.

Horus had played through their match many, many times, adjusting his own visualisations with each daemon the Angel slew. Triumph after triumph, kill after kill, and still — there was no possibility of the Angel besting him, nor was there any chance of the Angel joining his side.

And now?

Now that the siege had failed and the combined forces of the First, Sixth, and Thirteenth Legions were days away from the Sol System, he felt an inkling of dread. Was it possible that the True Gods did not consider him worthy? Had he been raised up into such a vaulted place, only to fall?

He let down the shields on his ship, successfully goading his father and brothers on-board. His psykers reassured him the ragtag group would be split, so split they were. All the while, he wondered — in so off-handed a way it was as if he were pondering someone else's fate, rather than his own, in immediacy — whether he had already fallen.

The answer was revealed to him almost immediately, when Sanguinius stormed into his throne room, but the True Gods showed a ghost of their hand then, robbing him any opportunity of reasoning with the other.

Sanguinius had fallen. Horus could see it at a glance. The week spent at the Gate of Terra had marred him irrevocably and the death and rot emanating from him spoke not only of Horus' men, but his own sons. Had this been inevitable, Horus wondered, or had the constant fighting made it so?

Either way, when Sanguinius approached him, rage and bloodlust rolling with each step, Horus — in the name of their friendship, their fraternity, their _love_ — still tried. It was to be the best speech he had ever given, the sort that might have swayed even the Emperor. But the first sentence fell on deaf ears; Sanguinius snarled and leapt at him.

Horus reacted but it was a purely reflexive action. He still couldn't believe the man before him was his brother. There was no humanity left in him, no sense whatsoever. Sanguinius bared his teeth as Horus grabbed his sword mid-swing and Horus could see the bits of transhuman flesh still wedged in the edges of his teeth.

"Brother —" he tried again.

Sanguinius gave a maddening shriek, pulling his sword out and jumping back. His great wings flared and he used them to propel himself into a corner. Horus watched on, still rooted to the spot, as the Angel sat in a crouch at the throne room's parapet. It was a position that suited Cruze, not Sanguinius.

And then he was leaping forward again, beginning the fight anew, and with each tactless blow, Horus was made certain: there was nothing of his brother left.

But how? And why?

He parried upwards of two hundred blows delivered in messy unintelligible succession, until at last he could stand the sick comedy of it no longer. With an animalistic snarl of his own, he cleaved the Angel's sword in half and surged forward, stabbing his claws through the other's midsection in a way that mimicked the previous flurry of combat. Sanguinius would have dodged it. Sanguinius might have even returned the blow. But this pale remnant of a brother, this spectre that wore the Angel's skin, it took the blow in full.

Horus watched on as blood began to pour from the other's mouth and chest. He looked and looked for some sign of recognition, some hint of consciousness.

The True Gods robbed him of even this.

At the last moment, when he was feeling the life leave his brother's body and a tremendous shockwave of energy was gathering, the likes of which could only be rivalled by Ferrus Manus' unfortunate death — he was at last given a vision.

Sanguinius had known it would come to this. Worse than that, their _father_ had known it too. Between living on as a emissary of Chaos or dying as a mindless beast, their father had ordered the latter and Sanguinius, loyal to the end, obedient to a fault, had agreed.

Horus felt ice wash over him as he let the Angel fall to the floor.

This was it, he realized. This was all they were. Pawns, numbered chesspieces of a galactic scale. All the times he feared the Emperor loved Sanguinius more were quashed. There were no favorites, only tools and ways of use.

Sanguinius had chosen death over freedom. Horus would not make the same mistake.


End file.
